Tag Archives: rules

Contrary to most of English, the apostrophe is a fairly easy lesson. It only has two uses – just two – and they are 99% consistent. Because it’s so easy you’d think that you would rarely see errors. WRONG. I … Continue reading →

Ah, vacation. That dreamy time when time slows to a crawl and you can leisurely sit back and create the world’s next great bestselling novel. The muses love a brain at rest and the thoughts flow like water on the … Continue reading →

We had a long discussion about the word ‘that’ a while back, talking about all of its various uses and also where it might not be needed. If you missed it, click here for the post: That Dratted “That” Today … Continue reading →

Poor ‘that’ has fallen into the ‘unnecessary words targeted for removal’ category along with the words just, very, and a healthy selection of adverbs. I have been slamming my brain against the desk to figure out why. After digging deep … Continue reading →

Every writing book I’ve read offers this bit of advice to help strengthen writing – eliminate adverbs. Today we will refresh our memories on what makes an adverb and explore why they should be avoided. Let’s start by reviewing our … Continue reading →

It is Wednesday and we are returning to Grammarland: the magical place of punctuation rules, tips on language usage, and other useful tools for writers. Today we are reviewing correct dialogue punctuation. First, the anatomy a dialogue sentence: “You are … Continue reading →

I have a confession to make, I don’t understand how to use a semicolon properly. There, I said it. So let’s have a review lesson together. The Four Rules of Semicolon Usage Rule #1 -Use to connect two independent clauses … Continue reading →